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The Minecraft Generation

nytimes.com

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Re: The Minecraft Generation

#71

Post by scholia »

Razengan wrote: post #46
k-mcgrady wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "It is the same problem the last generation had, in large part, with the public schooling Microsoft monoculture. Kids grew up on Windows 95 and Office and are now indoctrinated into Microsoft tooling, probably for life, as loyal customers. A very valuable investment on Microsoft's part to capture the computer knowledge of a large portion of a generation." I don't think this is as big of an issue as you think. I wo…

Same here. Born into a Sinclair Spectrum and Commodore 64 household, grew up on PC/DOS and spent the majority of my life on Windows, deep inside the Microsoft galaxy, but now I've settled into Macs and OS X. I think games used to be the big differentiator for many people, more so than office software, but now the gap is decreasing rapidly on all fronts. Apple needs to revisit the Mac mini as a low-cost entry into the…

Sure, because it's obviously better to use closed, proprietary hardware from a single source than one that's not just open to global competition but lets you build PCs yourself....

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#72

Post by nfd »

CaptSpify wrote: post #55
danielvf wrote: post #2

This is a good article. I couldn't help but laugh though: "telnet, a command-­line tool often used by professionals to manage servers."

Sadly telnet is still in use in some places. As of ~4 years ago, I was using it on medical devices!

That's horrifying.

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#73

Post by Joof »

chezhead wrote: post #70

I'm a bit younger than many of you (talking about your grandchildren and sons playing this game!). I'm 20, and played a lot of Roblox and then Minecraft before they were this popular. I even interviewed Notch on a cute little podcast called "MineCast" I made back then. Administrating a medieval-themed role-playing server back then taught me a lot about server administration and general diplomacy (handling bans and ch…

I'm 25 and love minecraft. Knew notch from IRC before he got famous which was a pretty weird 'this random guy I met is rich and famous now'.

I was a big dwarf fortress fan before minecraft came out. That's probably where my obsessions really are :p.

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#74

Post by Kenji »

I love minecraft. It is actually through redstone circuitry in minecraft that I understood many things of digital design, for example I discovered the contamination and propagation delay all by myself while playing. When the professor taught us those things, I instantly understood he meant this. I had trouble with my redstone circuits when I built a combination lock because, while the circuit was settling to a stable state, the door would open and close erratically. I then had to build something like a timer that isolated the door from the circuit until it settled to a stable state.

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#75

Post by awqrre »

joezydeco wrote: post #18

These days I'm a bit more intrigued by Roblox. My 11 year-old son and his friends have completely abandoned Minecraft for it. Roblox is designed for MMO play from the start, but worlds (or whatever they're called) are completely open to modification with their free editor. Then you can script things in Lua. Lua! The other night my son was antsy at the dinner table. So I asked him why the rush. He said he "had a fligh…

Do they expect you to fix Roblox by reprogramming it? it seems pretty buggy... and it is quite different from Minecraft...

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#76

Post by Filligree »

noobie wrote: post #34
Filligree wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should definitely look at Electrical Age as well. I mean... I'm biased, because I'm one of the (non-core) devs, but it's a reasonably accurate DC electrical simulator, in Minecraft! What's not to love?

Sold! I haven't played around in a while but I definitely will. Thanks!

If you feel like playing beta-tester, there's also my dev server at https://madoka.brage.info/

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#77

Post by bsharitt »

I have two kids, a son 5 and a daughter 8 who spend a lot lot of their free time on Minecraft(pocket edition on Kindle Fires). I'm kind of amazed at the kind of stuff they come up with. My daughter mostly uses for "artwork" building sculptures and statues and things like that, basically an extension of the drawing she does when she's not on her Kindle. That was basically my expectation when I got Minecraft for them as I was familiar with the "virtual lego" aspect of it, but my son has really surprised me. He uses pressure plates, switches, dynamite, red stone, etc to build all these little machines(my daughter does too, but not to the same extent). Looking closely at what he builds I didn't expect my 5 year old to have the kind of grasp on programming-like logic.

I had originally set up a Raspberry Pi to hopefully teach him some beginning programming(my daughter has a Chromebook with regular Linux installed, and I've taught her some Python and HTML) with Scratch, but he had not interest in it at all, but he did find Minecraft on the Pi and for the first few days both kids where gathered around it until I put in on their Kindles to give them a newer version and one where they can play together.

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#78

Post by txru »

wtbob wrote: post #3
danielvf wrote: post #2

This is a good article. I couldn't help but laugh though: "telnet, a command-­line tool often used by professionals to manage servers."

Yeah, that one got me too. I really hope these servers just call them telnet admins and don't actually use telnet in 2016.

From the way the article describes the Minecraft community development, I thought it was possible that the choice of telnet was deliberate. It's easier to log in to, for one- no key configuration. And while the connection is insecure, I would bet a lot that nothing of value can be accessed from the people actually telnetting in- I bet that all non-game related write permissions are limited to SSH users. And if they are hacked, then they are (probably) inconvenienced, think about their passwords, and really understand why people use this thing SSH instead of telnet.

It seems pretty genius to me.

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#79

Post by ehnto »

joezydeco wrote: post #43
WillPostForFood wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roblox is designed like an MMO. But that also has drawbacks. They charge like an MMO (monthly subscription), and you are beholden to their system/servers. I don't think I've ever gotten more value from a software purchase than buying Minecraft for €9.95 in 2010.

I think you can do a lot on the free tier, my son only recently started spending a little to unlock some of the upgrades. Personally I'd rather see subscriptions fund a server that's always up. I've researched running my own Minecraft server for the local kids, but it's really not worth it.

You can do okay on a DO VPN for say $20/month. I did this for a while but it was only me and a few friends, and when we wanted to use a modpack I moved the server an oldish computer in my house as it needed more grunt.

Calculating the power costs put it at about $30/month in electricity, ignoring all the time wasted getting it running.

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#80

Post by frogpelt »

zanny wrote: post #23
joezydeco wrote: post #18

These days I'm a bit more intrigued by Roblox. My 11 year-old son and his friends have completely abandoned Minecraft for it. Roblox is designed for MMO play from the start, but worlds (or whatever they're called) are completely open to modification with their free editor. Then you can script things in Lua. Lua! The other night my son was antsy at the dinner table. So I asked him why the rush. He said he "had a fligh…

The idea of a corporate for-profit proprietary video game being the centerpiece of a generation's learning is horrifying and dystopian to me. It is the same problem the last generation had, in large part, with the public schooling Microsoft monoculture. Kids grew up on Windows 95 and Office and are now indoctrinated into Microsoft tooling, probably for life, as loyal customers. A very valuable investment on Microsoft…

You sound paranoid.
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